Cellist Elena Ariza is rapidly establishing herself as one of today’s most creative and community-driven cellists. Elena was recently a featured cellist on Yo-Yo Ma’s groundbreaking Music Art Life project, exploring human connection and meaning through the J.S. Bach cello suites. An avid chamber musician, she has performed with luminaries such as Christopher O’Riley, Itzhak Perlman, Steve Tenenbom, Vivian Weilerstein, and members of the Brentano Quartet.

Making her Carnegie Hall debut at the age of 14, Elena has been heard on stages worldwide including the Berliner Philharmonie Grand Hall, Davies Symphony Hall, The Royal Concertgebouw, Seiji Ozawa Hall, and Smetana Hall in Prague. Elena has won 1st prize at the 2022 Gustav Mahler Prize Cello Competition, 1st prize at the 2022 Philharmonic Society of Arlington Young Artist Competition, and was a finalist in both the 2021 and 2019 Juilliard Concerto Competition. Other awards from notable competitions include the Music Teachers National Association’s California State Competition, Pacific Musical Society Annual Competition, and Mondavi Young Artists Competition. Soloist engagements include appearances with the Arlington Philharmonic Society, Palo Alto Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra, and Symphony Parnassus. She has appeared on NPR’s From the Top as both a soloist and chamber musician.

A fierce advocate for the music of today, Elena has commissioned and performed the world premiere of Anne Qian Wang’s The Cat That Lived a Million Lives, based on the children’s picture book of the same title. She has also given the world premiere of Hiroya Miura’s Lustral Shades, collaborating with esteemed musicians of the Japanese tradition in a quintet for hichiriki, sho, ryuteki, shamisen, and cello. Her recent recital programs promote 21st century and underrepresented works such as Perhaps by Reena Esmail, Tableau VIII by Tyson Gholston Davis, Up, and Where the Air Gets Thin for cello and contrabass by Libby Larsen.

Passionate about community activism, Elena most recently organized and performed a benefit cello recital that raised over $7,000 for Ukraine, partnered with the Mountain View Japanese Seventh-day Adventist Church in California. In 2011, Elena helped raise more than $12,000 through three charity concerts that she and her friends organized in the San Francisco Bay Area, in order to help the victims of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Since then, she has performed in several concerts to benefit the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, Japanese Red Cross, and Global Giving.

Elena has received various masterclasses and coachings from Colin Carr, David Finckel, Clive Greensmith, Frans Helmerson, Gary Hoffman, Joseph Kalichstein, Kim Kashkashian, Ralph Kirshbaum, Paul Katz, Hakuro Mori, Johannes Moser, Philippe Muller, Sangmin Park, Itzhak Perlman, Li-Wei Qin, Marcy Rosen, Roger Tapping, Alisa Weilerstein, Don Weilerstein, and the Borromeo, Emerson, Juilliard, Shanghai, and Brentano quartets, among others. She has also attended the Aspen Music Festival and School, Music@Menlo Chamber Music Festival and Institute, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Perlman Music Program Chamber Music Workshop, Ravinia Steans Music Institute, Tanglewood Music Center, Taos School of Music, Vivac-e!, and Yellow Barn Young Artists Program.

Based in New York City, Elena is a proud recipient of the C.V. Starr Doctoral Fellowship at Juilliard. She previously received her Artist Diploma and Master of Music degrees at Juilliard, and her Bachelor of Arts degree at Columbia University majoring in computer science, as part of the Columbia-Juilliard Exchange Program. She has performed as Principal Cellist of the Juilliard Orchestra under the batons of David Chan, Nicholas McGegan, David Robertson, and Speranza Scappucci. Elena is currently studying under the tutelage of Joel Krosnick and Astrid Schween, for whom she serves as Teaching Assistant. Her former teachers and mentors include Richard Aaron, Ronald Leonard, Sieun Lin, and Eric Sung. In her spare time, she enjoys paper crafting and playing chamber music with her violinist brother, Yujin, and her mother, Nagisa, a pianist.